Amazon is shutting down Kindle Vella

[lee.hauser]

I was serializing a novel on Vella. It wasn't the best choice of platform, and I'm not sad to see it go. I'll be starting over on Substack. I've been publishing simultaneously on Medium, since Amazon required any publication of the work outside of Vella to be behind a paywall.

My book, a science fiction novel, was going out two episodes a week, and getting no readers...not surprising, as my promotion was just a post on Mastodon. For me this is more an effort to get my work out there than to make any money. The Substack serialization will be free, with a few perks for people who want to pay me $5 a month.

[cgsmom]

Barnes & Noble used to have Serial Reads. It was only one book each month. They would release one chapter a day. If the book was one I was interested in, I liked it OK. But most of the time, it was a book I wasn't interested in. They recently discontinued the program. I am kind of surprised they haven't tried some sort of subscription service, not that they would do very well at it. They seem to support ebooks grudgingly.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by rkomar

Serialization in stand-alone issues is alive and well for comics/graphic novels with longer story arcs. Those who can't wait for the next installment can buy the thirty-two page issues, while those like me who want to read in bigger chunks can wait for the volumes with collected issues.

I feel like that's a bit different as it's always been expected and used with the comic/graphic novel system for the most part, and most of these are from small press or larger publishers

When they first announced this, I said the same, I didn't think it would be that popular long-term with many people, and it looks like that came true. Sure there are always some who are fine with it but I just didn't see it staying popular or taking off much.